Happy Birthday, Anne Frank, Holocaust Diarist

Holocaust victim and diarist Anne Frank lived 15 years, yet her legacy has outlasted that length of time fourfold. In the book known in English as “Anne Frank: the Diary of a Young Girl,” her voice of optimism in the face of inner struggle and wartime turmoil continues to inspire millions.

Anne and Margot took to their studies with zeal, and gained the respect of their many friends as accomplished students. But this would begin to change on May 10, 1940, when the Nazis invaded the Netherlands, and instituted a series of ever more restrictive laws on the Jews.

In 1942, Anne’s sister Margot received a “call-up,” a summons to a German labor camp. That July, the Franks went into hiding in a secret apartment at 263 Prinsengracht, the same building where Otto Frank worked. Eventually four other Dutch Jews would join them in the “Secret Annex”: Fritz Pfeffer, and Hermann, Auguste and Peter van Pels.

Indeed, the plaid-bound volume did become a source of solace to Anne during her adolescence. Her daily musings, reflecting on such common sources of teen angst as romantic crushes and sisterly squabbles, nevertheless showed introspection and literary acuity beyond her years.

Memorable quotes from her diary express hope in the face of terrible adversity: “I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too; I can feel the sufferings of millions; and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.”

Anne and Margot were sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where they both died of typhus in March 1945. Anne’s parents were sent to Auschwitz; the camp was liberated by Russian troops in early January 1945, just days after Anne’s mother had died.

Otto Frank, the only surviving member of the family, returned home, where Miep Gies, one of the Secret Annex’s “helpers” gave him the diary and Anne’s other writings, which she had kept after the raid. Astonished at his daughter’s maturity and insightfulness, Otto Frank printed 1,500 copies of the diary, titling it “Het Achterhuis,” or “The Secret Annex.”

Known to American readers as “Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl,” it has since been published in more than 60 languages and has become one of the most influential—and widely read—literary works in history.

The Anne Frank Museum site notes that there are actually several versions of Anne Frank’s diary. Anne herself edited and rewrote several sections, Otto Frank edited the diary before publication and various subsequent editors have restored previously cut sections. In 1998, five loose pages regarding her reflections on her parents’ relationship were discovered.